Since a few days my reca rom as not been a stable as when I first installed it...apart from somewhat lower battery life and occasional self reboot, the most systematic symptom I have is non working camera...launching the stock camera show a black screen with the control and a message "can not connect to camera" and all apps using front or back camera just show a black screen...a reboot solve the problem for a while, then after maybe 5h the same thing happen... clearing cache and dalvik cache didn't change anything...I think I will need a fresh reinstall, but I am on holiday right now si it will have to wait...Also, I did test usb host, seems the kernel do not support it...any chance to add it?

I use it constantly too, and it works great. Very close to stock, with just the right changes.
BTW, did u compile the kernel or re-used another one? I wonder if USB ORG is activated...Well, I am waiting for OTG cables, I should know very soon :-)

well, the small stuff on the left could - barely - be leds. Probably not, but I was not able to find any pics clear enough to be sure. Best way would be to look directly in my s500, but i would need to unscrew the plastic cover to get there...

It seems it is now in sys/class/leds/
there is an lcd-backlight directory which work, but on phones with button backlight there is a button-backlight with similar structure that is lacking on the s500 (at least with reca/stock kernel. )
So, as expected, no support for button leds in the kernel...Leds may be present (I think the chance is small), but they would not be controllable anyway...

here it is
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1330150
meanwhile I checked the service manual of S500, which show low-res pics of the PCB. I can not see leds there, except if they are on the right side and used a kind of lightguide design to light up all buttons. The light guide is (probably) gone (it may be integrated in the loudspeaker part that make the bottom of the S500), but if the leds are still there some kind of hack is probably possible. Kernel would probably need modification though to control eds, even if they still are on the PCB...

Pie control from the xda dev thread, but I think there are other possible choice using Xposed for example. Never tried the other as the apk from XDA work well from me.
For removing the soft button, I have manually edited /system/build.prop, adding qemu.hw.mainkeys=1 at the end of the file and reboot. Again, I think there are other way to do it but this one require 0 additional software install. Just make sure your alternative control (pie or ther) work before doing it, else u will find that using the phone without soft buttons is quite hard ;-)
BTW, on my S500 the acer logo is not really white, it is more like silver metallic paint. Not sure it is transparent even if the leds are still there. So if leds are still there and kernel still can light them, some paint scratching mod may be needed. It would be nice to have S500 disassembly pictures, but not sure it is available...

yes, that's interresting. I'd like to get those capacitive button back (although I do not miss them as much now that I use pie control and have removed software buttons). I wonder if the backlight leds are still there too, and they only have stopped etching the button logos and replaced it by "acer". That would make a great notification area, I miss notification leds :-) would be a great hardware hack to get the buttons and led backlight back :-)

I would wait 1 or 2 month more and pick the galaxy s4. Should price drop soon, if rumors regarding new s5 are true...The just-released samsung flagships do not have the same quality/price ratio than the S500 for example, and their non-flagships phones are s*** imho. But the previous gen flagship is usually nice, nice screen/size ratio, huge community (roms, accessories,backcovers...), replacable batteries and micro-sd. Very few new phones have those characteristics, so that's what I plan to do if I feel like replacing my s500. Else, some sony looks more and more interesting, with their water resistance. I saw u came from the defy like I did, and that's one thing I miss with my Acer. The Moto X is interesting too, but no microsd :(

Yep, my bad, I have just seen it and downloading right now.
After all, this free download site is no worse than the other: on one hand the amount of advertising and popup is worse than the already crazy standard for those sites...and having to uncheck an agree checkbox to get a better experience is...strange...But after that, it is faster than all the other free downloads site i have used and it allows 500 MB unsplit so, ok ;-)

Am I the only one unable to download? I know free download sites are usually bad, but this one sucks bad among the bad, it only propose to download an .exe... No way I download an exe and launch it to download a zip, for one i am under linux so it would not work...but even if I was under windows not braindead enough to do that...
my bad: i should have read the page just before: uncheck "Agree to Kingsfile terms or service" and it works ok with very good speed after killing the annoying popups.

Well, right now devs are trying to port cyanogen 10.1 (jb 4.2) to s500...without success at this time, due mainly to graphical drivers. I know, I tried it myself ;) others are trying too, using various methods, but it seems difficult and the dev community is not huge for our phone so...When a cyanogen based on kitkat is out, I will try again but I am not too experienced so don't hold your breath ;) maybe some will try using aosp, then u will hear about it shortly as aosp 4.4 is available...but I doubt it will be any easier than jb 4.2 unfortunately...

Yes it would be great to have kitkat on our s500...but I would bet on the community of this happen...Acer will never do it, petition or not..
Afaik the s500 is not produced anymore, not even sure stock still exist,
At least for the black one...Acer is no worst than other manufacturer,
They usually provide one major upgrade and that's all...except for the
Nexus models supported by Google, and sometimes high volume flagship.
The s500 was (briefly) Acer flagship, but it was certainly not high volume, so if u are hoping for anything
Else than the ics to jb that Acer provided, u will be deceived imho...